I suppose we’re all expected to just pretend our POTUS is not having trouble staying awake at daises, televised meetings and foreign trips.
That he is not literally falling asleep on camera, the latter being passed off as resting his eyes even though we see it happening in real time right before our eyes.
Watching a handful of five minute segments here and there of the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend I saw the heavy-lidded eye shutting at least three times and marveled at how everyone around him treated this like business as usual.
Which one can only suppose it is. Or has become.
It reminded me of when I was a kid and begged to stay up really late to watch a TV show, only to fall asleep during it and then deny I was sleeping because I wanted to still be where the action was.
No one wants to be told to go to bed but it’s every adult in the room’s obligation to recognize when someone is literally not able to function.
Anyone with an aging or old parent understands the drill. And those who’ve had to bury an elderly mother and/or father know this even better.
There comes a time when it’s up to those sharp, responsible and mature enough to step in with a reality check.
Sometimes this means relieving a person of their car keys. Or relieving them of some duties. Or hiring a full-time caretaker. Or doing something else to guarantee their safety and your piece of mind.
Or even your safety.
I was reading The New York Times on Saturday and there was an article about legendary baby boomer actress Debra Winger, she of three Oscar nominations, hit movies and brilliant but wild reputation, and her husband, veteran character actor Arliss Howard, starring in a downtown Manhattan production of….
The Gin Game.
For those who don’t know or don’t remember, the play is famously about two old people in a retirement home who play cards and drive each other crazy. It originally starred another real-life, long married couple, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.
Ms. Tandy, an Oscar winner for playing that VERY old lady in Driving Miss Daisy, also won Broadway’s Tony award for playing merely an old lady in The Gin Game 10 years earlier.
Being a baby boomer myself, it surprised me that Jessica Tandy was only (Note: Only!!!) 68 years old when she did that play, and her husband was a positively youthful 66 years old.
While both Debra Winger and Arliss Howard are each now….71 years old.
Yes. They are 3-5 years OLDER than what was thought to be the OLD two-person cast (Note: Mr. Tandy and Mr. Cronin had big careers playing old codgers and being old codgers) of the original Broadway production of a play about old people playing cards.
Of course, it’s about a lot more than that.
But as Ms. Winger admits in her interview, she thought of Gin Game as something I wouldn’t go see, for whatever reason. Just not my cup of tea.
Well, we know what type of tea and we know the reason.
And I never went to see it, or read it, for that very same tea and that exact same reason.
But once she realized the character was exactly her age and her husband’s age, it instantly became relevant. Even more so after they read it and realized some of the below the surface, darker issues the “senior citizen” characters in the play deal with, were more than personally identifiable.
Of course, dedicated, successful career actors like to delve, regardless of the age or level of “attractiveness” of the part. And they make a darn good living at it.
Career politicos and the politicians they deal with, tend to avoid that kind of thing like the plague. Especially these days.
And, okay, they’re not alone.
I was always the ‘youngest’ in my gatherings of friend/peer groups. But what this means is that all of the people in my groups that I’ve known the longest are all in their seventies, and sometimes their eighties.
Yes, it’s true.
I’m right behind them but not all that far behind. And we’re all still “functioning.” But I don’t know there’s any among us I’d consider for the 24/7 job of…leader of the free world.
Though each and every one of us are a better choice than the fella that’s there now.
Irregardless of politics.
I’m pretty sharp and I’ve never fallen asleep on a dais. Though God knows I’ve wanted to.
Still, sometimes, when I’ve gone to a room upstairs in my house, I can’t always exactly remember what I need there.
Or other times, I’m trying to think of an actor or actress and I know their first name, can see their face and tell you a ton about them. But for the life of me can’t remember their last name.
Last week it was Christine EBERSOLE, who I loved in the Broadway musical Grey Gardens. I had Baranski, Lahti and Hendricks but couldn’t get to f’n Ebersole.
Worse was a week before that. Matt Bomer came to mind and for about half an hour all I could think of was Matt and his baby blues. Though soon it did all kick in.
I guess when you think real hard you can still remember what’s most important to you.
Which could be an explanation for an Oval Office that is literally exploding at the seams with enough gilded gold to choke an army full of Saddam Hussein imitators.
Honestly, take a look.
Impressive if you were forming twelve tribute bands to a dethroned Middle East dictator and needed a backdrop.
But not a rational backdrop for the leading democracy on the globe.
Or any rational person tasked with leading it.
Jennifer Hudson – “Golden Slumbers” (SING soundtrack)
notes from a chair 